Here in the Balkans smoking is very common, so much that everyone assumes you’re a smoker unless you specifically state you aren’t.
And several times over the past few years I have seen very pregnant women smoking while waiting for the bus. I frowned but didn’t feel the need to get involved.
So I was wondering, considering that most posters here are from the Western world, what you would do if you saw a pregnant woman (complete stranger)smoking? Would you say something or not? Of course, you should reply regardless of what part of the world you’re from.
I wouldn’t say anything, but I’d cringe for sure. It’s not like she doesn’t know it’s a bad idea.
US here.
I wouldn’t say a thing. I don’t care for smoking & hate the damage it does to people’s health. And I know it is bad for the kid to be.
However, it is not my business to tell a pregnant stranger something she probably already knows.
Wouldn’t say anything. It’s not as if anything I say is going to convince her and not my place.
Not my business.
I smoke, but feel it is best for a mother-to-be to at least cut down, if not temporarily quit — nonetheless, her choices are nothing to do with me and I do not have any right to distress her by imposing my own beliefs upon her.
In Britain we have a saying, ‘Everyone must go to Hell in their own way’.
I see it every day - two women I work with. Don’t like to see it, but it’s not my business.
What do you mean by “feel bad”? I’d feel bad in that I wouldn’t think it was a good thing, and I might relate the story to someone, but I wouldn’t feel bad in the sense that I felt guilty for not saying anything.
None of my business. I doubt she’d listen to me even if said anything. The dangers are well known (but, then again, plenty of pregnant women smoked when I was born).
I meant “feel bad” in the former sense, as in, feel bad for the baby.
I had so much “help” being pregnant. You stand in line at Starbucks to order a decaf coffee and get a lecture on caffeine. You go to a bar and have water or coke because someone is leaving the company and you want to say goodbye, and get a lecture on second hand smoke and/or the dangers of alcohol (because no one ever drinks anything non-alcoholic in bars). You get strangers talking about the benefits of breastfeeding or the dangers of medicated childbirth in the elevator. God forbid if you don’t wear your wedding ring because your fingers are bloated, because now someone tells you all about the problems with single parent households.
I’m a huge fan of “unless someone asks your opinion, mind your own goddamn business about what they do to their body and how they raise their children.”
I would mind my own goddamn business. I would also feel privately slightly judgmental, but in my opinion that’s not the same as “feeling bad,” so I chose the first poll option. I feel judgmental about a lot of stuff but that doesn’t mean I have to run my yap about it.
Throw her to the ground and abort the fetus with a coat hanger to save the child from the misery of living with a mother like that.
Or nothing. It’s a toss of a coin.
I wonder if pregnant non-smokers ever get intense cravings for cigarettes, the same way they might for foods they’ve never liked before. Anyway, whatever you say or do, unless the woman doesn’t know smoking is bad for the fetus (and if she doesn’t, it may be the least of her worries), unless you’re planning to babysit her for the next few months, what’s the use?
Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t glare long and hard, though.
I was thinking ‘flying tackle from her blind side’ but I like the cut of your jib, sir.
I have to wonder if they’re as bombarded w/ anti-smoking PSA’s there as we are here in North America (have you SEEN whatthey put on packs of smokes in Canada??); if they’re not my response would differ. So, OP, are they? Have you seen PSA’s about smoking?
There have been some anti-smoking campaigns (billboards and PSA’s on TV) but they were relatively mild. No pictures of corpses and charred organs - just how smoking is “totally not cool”. Cigarette packs have the obligatory “Smoking kills” in bold letters but no one really cares or notices (duh). I have to wonder how effective that stuff even is…
The main problem in this country (Serbia) is that everybody does it and it’s allowed everywhere, so teenagers will naturally pick up the habit to blend in with the rest of the population.
I don’t normally care what other people do with their bodies, but it’s so socially acceptable and welcomed here that you just can’t avoid being exposed to smoke all day. I can’t ride the public bus without the bus driver lighting up and stinking up the entire bus, for example.
I would mind my own business.
That said, my youngest sister is currently a pregnant smoker. She’s about four months and isn’t planning to quit. She’s even looking forward to the lower birth weight.
I don’t live near her and don’t talk to her much (there are a bunch of other issues around the whole situation too), so I just try not to think about it, but if I was near her, I’d probably glare at her a lot.
I’d mind my own goddamn business and STFU. Until someone starts paying me to be the Morality Police, I’m not going around lecturing perfect strangers about their choices.
I would totally judge her for it though 
Actually, once upon a time (2007) I was in a bar and the woman next to me asked for a light. I didn’t smoke so I couldn’t help her but she started talking to me anyway. She was 19ish years old, about 8 months pregnant and had gone out drinking as a “last blast” before having the baby because her partner had beaten her up in front of their two other kids the week before. She’d spent the afternoon on the pokies (poker machines) with her mother and brother but had wondered down to the bar to have a few beers because she was running out of money. I congratulated her and wished her all the best with the birth before beating a hasty retreat. So much wrongness on one barstool…
Absolutely nothing.
I’m pretty sure I’ve shared before, but just in case not:
Once upon a time, my ex-best friend, whom I had cut out of my life due to her drug habits, called me up in tears because she realized two weeks ago that she hadn’t gotten her period in 5 months. Yep. Preggers, and living in a crack house. She asked me to take her to the OB, which of course I did.
The nurse begins the health history and gets to the drug part.
Cocaine use? Yep.
Heroin use? Yep.
PCP? Yep.
and so on, down a list of a dozen or so common street drugs.
The nurse blanched white as a sheet and stammered a bit before leaving the room. In comes the very nervous looking OB, who repeats all the questions, to the same responses.
“Cocaine?” “Yes”. “When was your last use?” “Two weeks ago.”
“Heroin?” “Yes”. “When was your last use?” “Two weeks ago.”
etc. etc.
She quit everything cold turkey when she realized she was pregnant. Everything, that is, except smoking.
“Do you smoke?” “Yes.”
“DON’T STOP!” bellowed the OB. Yes, I heard it with my own ears. He adamantly did **not **want her to stop smoking during her pregnancy, lest the stress of one more drug withdrawal lead her to start the other stuff again.
You just never know what someone’s doctor has told her, or why. MYOB
Offer her extra cigarettes. I’m in favor of most things that reduce population.